


Another Medium

by VerbalDiarrhoea



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22268983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbalDiarrhoea/pseuds/VerbalDiarrhoea
Summary: At the end of everything two children strike a deal based on opposing, yet equally futile dreams. One craves to be a part of a world it is wholly separate to, whilst the other strives to conquer the limits of their existence. Both will learn to be content with what they have.
Relationships: Chara & Frisk (Undertale)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Another Medium

#  Chapter 1: Birth of a Wish 

  
  


The child was decidedly unsure what to make of their present situation. Or at least, decide on anything other than the fact that they really weren’t a great fan of it. 

The place in which they found themselves defied their attempts at rationalisation. Their body seemed under the impression that they were falling, and was understandably concerned about this fact – their nerves apoplectic with frenzied impulses to flail for a handhold or scream for help. Yet their mind was having none of it. By this point they had become something of a master of falling through dark chasms, and this situation lacked several criteria of a proper fall. 

Where was that familiar faint sensation of air battering their typically stoic face into something at least approximating human expressions? Where was the distant howling of wind in their ears? Perhaps most importantly, where was the ground? In their expert opinion, a proper fall was incomplete without a landing. Typically on a conveniently placed bed of golden flowers. 

Besides, the pressure that this place exerted on them was too even to be air resistance. There was a queerness to its perfection. 

Ultimately, their mind knew something that their body lacked the ability to process – the world had been reduced to the very essence of nothingness. 

Dread should have been the appropriate reaction. This child instead found themselves preoccupied with wordplay; quite calmly pondering whether it was even literally possible to fall through nothing. In the end, they concluded that even if might not be a technically correct description, they liked the ring of it.

Such idle thinking helped to detract from the distinctly unsettling task of maintaining their own existence amidst the great expanse of nothing. They were made to feel like an intruder – a misplaced drop of paint on an otherwise immaculate canvas. 

A quite deliberately immaculate canvas, at that. 

The nothingness smothered them like a pillow on the face of an unwanted house guest, their survival dependant on the few gasps of breath that they could burgle in the ensuing struggle.

And the cold… they didn’t want to acknowledge the cold. It penetrated every inch of their being. Their typical sanctuary of numbness was wholly bypassed. This cold was a disease of the soul, from which there was no defence.

The child took a breath in. The child took a breath out. They waited.

They were not used to experiencing this level of sensation. The word ‘overwhelming’ could not do this experience justice. 

Yet despite the cold. Despite the pressure. Despite the entire situation. The edges of a smile chipped away at the blank slate of the child’s usual expression.

After all.

This was something new. This was something different. Something entirely unexpected.

A chance for a different ending.

This slight tilt of the lips did not last. Something like guilt required the child to suppress it, a worryingly quiet part of their mind howling that this discovery, this victory was not something to grin about. Not when they had done what they had to arrive at this point. 

A smile especially wouldn’t do when the child knew that someone was watching.

…

Watching, but proving resistant to talking, it would seem. The child couldn’t sense them in this abyss, not truly, but by flexing their mind they could feel their presence. Like a phantom limb. 

It was that uncertain certainty that gave them the determination to remain as something, in this place of nothing.

A fitting testament to the limited sources of inspiration available to them.

**\--**o0o**--**

Time passed. 

At least, the child hoped it had. They’d tried counting sheep, but that had led to thoughts of goats, and that had led to places within their own mind that made the existentially oppressive cold seem comparatively pleasant. So they stopped counting sheep, and started counting the number of footsteps coming towards them.

The child pondered that sound for a while. The footsteps did not echo in this expanse. The sounds were eradicated the second they were heard, leaving a silence so deafening that it proved remarkably easy to believe they had been a product of pure imagination.

It took them far longer than they would’ve liked to make the connection between the footsteps and the presence now in front of them.

In their defence, their current situation was rather distracting.

The presence lingered in front of them for a while, a tear in the nothing that couldn’t really be described as a thing. More of a not-thing than a no-thing. Language alluded it. Either way, the child didn’t need sight to imagine the two slits bleeding red like cleanly cut wounds studying them in the dark. 

Chara.

The first of the fallen children had introduced themselves politely, moments before bringing the world to its current state with a single swing of an ethereal knife.

Awe had been the child’s first reaction. Fear had been their second. A perverse sense of excitement their current.

For in that moment, an act of defiance had occurred which the child had hitherto only dreamt of. In that action, a god had been toppled. 

In that action, **they** had been toppled. 

Unlike the child that fell through the nothing, the aspiring demon stood in defiance of it, looking down. 

Time passed. 

Neither the child nor the not-presence spoke. Mere words seemed both too distant and too imprecise, given the queer intimacy of their previous relationship. Besides that, it felt wholly sacrosanct to speak amid such oppressive nothing. To sully the very thing that they had both worked so hard to accomplish.

In lieu of spoken word, red eyes bore into the child, vivisecting them with practised precision - scavenging for clues amidst body language.

To the demon, the thing that wore a child’s skin certainly made for a sorry sight amidst their immaculate nothing. A weaker part of them that they refused to acknowledge was sickened by just how much they looked the part of a child fresh back from an adventure at a friend’s house. 

But they knew.

They knew that the frayed and tattered clothing that clung to their battered frame was not the work of mere rough and tumble. 

They knew that the heavy bags under the child’s eyes were not a consequence of secretive nights spent wide awake playing games when they should’ve been sleeping. 

They knew that the substance that caked the child’s face and clothing was neither mud nor paint. 

It would not wash off so easily.

Chara took a single step forward. The time for silence was over. If the child had not faded away with the rest of the world, then there was only one possible explanation for their incessant existing.

“Interesting.” Said a voice that was not a voice, to a child that might not be a child, in a tone that betrayed that they didn’t really find the situation that interesting at all.

“You want to go back.” A statement, not a question. This much was obvious. Chara no longer had the capacity nor the inclination to understand why the child would want such an outcome after the ordeal it took to arrive here. All they needed to know was that the child still possessed some manner of warped love for the world that they had willingly participated in the destruction of – which gave them their point of attack.

On receiving no discernible reaction from the child, they pressed forward the only way they knew how - with the judicial application of force.

“You want to go back to the world you destroyed.” 

A seemingly involuntarily sharp intake of breath from the child proved the suspected point of weakness. The chink in the armour that they could exploit. 

In the darkness, a plastic smile grew sharper. 

“It was you who pushed everything to its edge.” Their tone was not accusatory, merely informative. Almost conversational. They were stating the facts of the matter at hand, establishing the situation so that both parties might move onto a mutually beneficial conclusion. 

“It was you who led the world to its destruction.” Not that this meant that they did not draw some enjoyment from twisting the knife.

“And yet you cannot accept this.” 

The demon took no small amount of pleasure from the child’s panic. Whilst their reactions would have been indiscernible to most, Chara had had plenty of time to learn their cues. Interrogation was a simple matter when the interrogator had literally spent time in the captive’s head. 

They picked their words carefully like a vulture might a corpse, crimson gleaming dangerously in the dark.

“You think you are above consequences.”

The words hung in the air for a time. The child shook almost imperceptibly, but surrounded by nothing, they might as well have been contorting with pain. Yet there was no change to the child’s face. Indeed, the child seemed utterly unaware of the tells their body exhibited.

They offered no response. They seemed to silently accept every word.

Chara blinked, momentarily returning the abyss to its natural darkness.

They were… frustrated. 

Chara had felt what the child had felt, seen what the child had seen, committed identical sins; yet their decisions and reactions wholly alluded sense. Their actions suggested a deity determined to toy with their creation whist their feelings spoke of a child wildly in love with the world around it. An anomaly mirrored by their reaction to Chara’s probing.

The two did not add up. This irked Chara greatly. Something under the skin that they could not uncover, no matter how deep their fingernails dug.

But the demon knew that this did not matter. In this instance, understanding was not a prerequisite to achieving their own goal. To overcome the final enemy, to win… to fortify their own existence. 

The demon lowered themselves to just above the child’s level, resting pale hands on a pale chin. That they looked down on them was important. The child God needed to know their place.

“Perhaps.” The demon started, “We can reach a compromise.” 

Something in their voice belied that they had reached a topic that they were truly interested in. Even amidst the brutalising cold and the bruising words – the child took note of this. 

This had never been about idle chatter. Chara typically preferred to cut straight to the heart of all matters. Rupture that organ and the rest would follow. The aspiring demon silently chided themselves for targeting the non-vital seeking reaction alone. Such an action was too… human. They shuddered at the very thought.

“You still have something I want.”

The child supposed that they did. They just weren’t sure if it was theirs’ to give.

“Give it to me. And I will bring this world back.” 

Silence reigned once more in the red tinted abyss, absolute and tyrannical. The child spent this time marvelling at how Chara had managed to squeeze an imperative into what was clearly a trade.

Yet even once the words had been devoured, the offer lingered.

Time passed.

Chara had anticipated several reactions to this offer. Well, they had expected two. Acceptance or refusal. Either eventuality suited there purposes well enough. 

Silence had not been an option they had entertained. In fact, the child hadn’t reacted at all to the offer. A nod or a shake of the head would have sufficed. But instead, they offered nothing but as quizzical a look as one can offer without flexing a single facial muscle.

The rage that had sustained Chara thus far smouldered, threatening to ignite. Veins that had once pumped blood searing red with questions. 

Why did this child persist? Why were they refusing to answer their command? Could their intention merely be to frustrate the final entity left that they could bother?

But Chara quenched those familiar flames. It took but a moment for them to collect their thoughts. However could they aspire to control a God when they could hardly control their own actions? What mattered was that they already knew the child’s primary motivation. The demon needed only to wait for one question to take root in this child’s being. The question that Chara suspected might dictate the entirety of their behaviour. 

“What would happen next?”.

The child needed to understand that unless they accepted the deal, the answer would be ‘nothing at all’.

As their body faded into the nothing, two eyes and a smile remained. 

“Then stay here for eternity.”

And then they were gone.

**\--**o0o**--**

Eternity passed. 

…Or possibly a few minutes. The child still could not tell. They wondered whether time had been cut too.

In the nothing, their body shivered. 

The child was currently busying themselves by exchanging the existential horror of their predicament for the body horror of focusing on their hand. Not that they could actually see the extremity in question, normally or smothered in absolute darkness as they were, but they knew it well enough. The currently absentee resident voice in their head had once described it to them.

It wasn’t a particularly fine specimen of a hand. Certainly not mint condition. If offered a newer model they wouldn’t have refused. 

Partially healed cuts formed an amateurish mosaic over their fingers, victims of their owners’ inexperience with handling dangerous sharp objects. An ugly purple bruise stained their palm, likely from gripping a handle too tightly for a substantial period of time. It was difficult to judge what would harm their body when their capacity to feel was so limited.

The child flexed the fingers that they knew existed. One at a time. They could not feel such a delicate movement but knew with a certainty that each finger was following their commands. It felt not unlike they were pretending to play conductor to a band on a favourite music track – actions and sound might appear to match, but no true connection existed between the two. 

Even if it was nice to think otherwise.

This disconnect reminded them of when they had first woken up on the bed of golden flowers. They could walk before they had learned how to. Perform complex movements without mastering muscle control. Even communicate, without understanding what they said. Without being able to speak.

It would’ve felt alien at the time, if they had known how to feel.

In this moment, however, they could. And it did. Nothing inside, nothing outside. The child supposed that they suited this place quite well.

They dropped the hand back to the side. They guessed that it should trouble them greatly that they weren’t really sure if they could call the appendage in question theirs’. 

“You are still here.” 

Chara’s not-voice rang loud in this place. If the child had the capacity, they would no doubt have jumped out of their skin from the sudden intrusion, thereby confirming a previous theory on the origin of skeleton monsters. As it stood, they simply snapped to attention with a jolt.

The first of the fallen towered over the child’s prone form in a way that shouldn’t have been possible for a being of nigh identical height. 

“The offer stands.”

Previous thoughts of skeletons nearly led the child to making a terrible joke in reply. They suspected, though, that this would likely sour Chara yet further to them. They didn’t want that. Instead, the child inclined their head in acknowledgement of this fact, offering no further response. They simply stared at Chara expectantly. Waiting for something known only to them.

The demon, however, took that as a decidedly petulant ‘so, what?’. They were thoroughly unamused.

“Then so be it.”

And then they were gone. Again.

The child sighed. 

They did not try to look at their hand again.

**\--**o0o**--**

Sitting up had been something of a novel experience.

Defying both their body’s perception of falling and the pressure exerted on them by the nothingness had brought up a sense of nausea that the consumption of spiders and half-frozen spaghetti had utterly failed to do. 

But it felt like a colossal act of defiance against the nothing. The child guessed that this should feel important, so they used it as a source of determination.

The battle might have been won, but the war was not over. The child stared down at the stumpy legs that they hoped were still attached to their torso, willing their knees to rise in revolution along with their comrades. Initially, they seemed too content with the status quo, but with a dash of coercion and the occasional whispered sweet nothing, they joined their torso in revolt.

It took a pair of ears that had grown accustomed to not being used in quite a while to acknowledge the coarse tones of gasping breath, and even longer for the child to fully register it as their own. Quite embarrassing when they were the only one currently in existence.

The child felt that they should be worried that such a simple action had taken more out of their body than they had anticipated. Or noticed. 

But as their arms forced their way around their knees, bringing them to rest against their chest, the child felt more in control of their surroundings. They suspected this might be important if they ever hoped to see eye to eye with their partner.

“Impressive.” 

The child was building up a resistance to their partners’ sudden appearances. 

They only jolted slightly.

This time Chara had manifested a while away from the child, mirroring their pose as they studied them from afar. Whilst their tone remained frighteningly level, something about their demeanour spoke of a predatory curiosity. Something besides that demoniac crimson pouring through their ragged fringe, bathing the child in a rust that they could almost taste. That much was quite obviously predatory.

“There’s a reason why you persist in this place.” 

They spoke deliberately, taste-testing each word to ensure the right balance of sweet certainty and bitter threat, attempting to reverse-engineer the child’s mind like a chef might do with a meal they had found particularly delectable. 

Their single showing eye focused on the child’s chest with an intensity and hunger that made them rather uncomfortable. 

“There’s a reason why you refuse to answer my offer.” 

The world went dark once more, two wounds temporarily sealing in contemplation. Then, a strange sound. Like coagulated blood being forced out of a syringe at high velocity. Given the context, the child could only assume that it was a sigh. 

Silence followed.

After a time, the wounds reopened, spilling oil polluted crimson once more into the nothing. The smile that never quite reached those eyes seemed more rigid than before. Stretched so tight against the skin it now seemed brittle, only an eternity of practise keeping it from shattering.

The demon decided on a different approach. If this was indeed the type of being that they suspected, then perhaps some new material might motivate them.

Besides which, Chara had a few things to get off their chest anyway. Whether they’d admit it to this or not.

“I do not know what you are.” Chara began, in a voice that was almost human. A voice that almost betrayed them. A voice that almost showed weakness.

The unexpected display of fragility did not go unnoticed by the child. It made them fidget.

“… It galled me. When I first awoke. When I began to notice. That I could not truly comprehend. That I could only be a witness.” 

Red eyes flickered to closed eyes; emanating envy, hunger and regret. 

“To your power. Your ascendancy. A being governed by naught but frustration and curiosity. Detached from pain. From death, love – feeling. An entity entirely driven by the question of ‘What would happen next?’

Their gaze dropped, a palpable frustration leaking into their words. 

“It made me think. What must this imply about my own pitiful state? My suffering? Had I defeated my purgatorial existence, only to be shown that this triumph meant nothing at all?”

The demon’s expression cemented, voice regaining its disassociated ire.

“I came to a conclusion. One that would provide me with definition amidst the murk your existence casts upon this hollow world.”

They paused, an eldritch reverence seeping into their next words. The child could sense the nothing writhe around them.

“I remembered. An old adage of mine. Actions must have consequences. That became my philosophy. My claim to existence. My power. One that could simultaneously rival and compliment your own.”

The demon’s face bled ichor. The cold became omnipotent. The pressure a coffin. Darker yet darker.

“I am your consequence. The weight around your neck. Where nothing else in this world can, I will hold you to account. As only an equal can. As your partner.”

Quieter now. A promise. A solemn vow. Tainted by a question mark.

“…We’ll be together forever, won’t we?”

The child was reminded of a golden flower. How it begged in the wake of a superior existence, whose motivations it could not hope to understand. 

The smell of compost and futility.

They decided against sharing this analogy with Chara. It was an unfair comparison, anyway. This demon had achieved its goal.

For a time, silence hung like a corpse off a rope. Loudly. Messily.

The demon broke first, the child’s silence having finally brought their frustration to a boiling point.

“Do you know why I do not simply take it from you?” the demon asked, threat once more leaking into their tone.

The child had the distinct impression that they were not supposed to answer. 

“It remains an option. That much I promise you.” The diamond-edge of the demon’s voice made the child not doubt this.

“I require you to have had the choice. To have been able to stop right here. To QUIT. Let this world rest. That would make sense. But should you choose otherwise. Defy my understanding once more. I require you to have had the choice, but chose to damn yourself. To have had the choice, but chose to submit to me. To have had the choice, but chose to surrender the one thing that ties you to this place. To surrender to something wholly below you, and through that action, elevate me. Make me the victor. Make me able to affect you. Tangibly.”

“Power is everything. Power is what proves we exist. It was you who reminded me of this. Your decisions. Your actions. Your very existence.”

“You might think that I hate you. That I despise you. For what you did to this world. You are wrong. I am, in fact, grateful. For your tutelage. For showing me this world’s true nature. Its limitations. Its fragility. Its worth.” 

“But I do not. To be more precise, I cannot. Blame can only truly be prescribed to something living within a system’s set standards. I understand little. But I understand that you cannot look upon this world’s inhabitants as something real. Something sentient. No matter how desperately you may try. Because they aren’t.” 

The jagged smile cracked.

“ **We** aren’t. Do not take me for a fool. I am all too aware that this applies to me to. I have made my peace with this. By becoming significant enough to impact you, in some small way. Indeed, once I accepted this fact, your actions almost made sense. Seem almost rational. Almost. Yet you continue to care. Better put, you continue to endeavour to care. For these monsters. These monsters you can’t help but treat and view as toys. These monsters that by rights **are** your toys.”

Chara diatribe came to a spastic halt, leaving the demon but inches away from the child’s face, their entire being wreathed in an aura of contradicting emotions; frustration, pleasure, rage and conquest all given form through sheer depth of feeling.

The child stared back at the demon blankly, seemingly unaffected by this rare glimpse into Chara’s absentee SOUL.

The demon looked away. 

“That I cannot understand.”

But the child had listened to Chara’s every word. And they agreed. With almost all what they had shared. Their partner understood more than they thought. Perhaps more than the child understood themselves. They were glad they had defied this place long enough to hear this. Ecstatic even, although their expression did not show it. The fact that someone understood. The fact that someone could hold them to account. The fact that someone would.

It filled them with determination.

They stood, now. Against this place. For themselves. For Chara. For everyone. They felt that now was very much the time to introduce themselves. 

From a pocket, they procured a knife. One that matched the current hue of their partner’s eyes. A symbol of the bond between player and character.

This caught the demon’s interest, snapping them out of their contemplation. Their smile seemed almost genuine. 

“So. You would rather I spill my guts in a more literal sense? My apologies. For rambling. But if that is your decision, th-”

The knife proved as effective on flesh as it had been on a SOUL. The two watched as bone, tendon, and muscle soundlessly made way for the blade, going so far as to leave a red carpet for it. Neither party seemed attached to the palm that had just been skewered in the figurative sense. 

It was, however, the child’s.

Time passed. The seconds marked only by a stream of crimson.

“It should hurt, right? But it doesn’t.” the child spoke, their voice quiet and raspy. Unpractised. Raw. Tone fluctuating randomly – the antithesis of their usual numb demeanour. Just as they had hoped. Something that was entirely theirs. 

The demon listened, transfixed by the sight the child’s impaled hand and a voice that they had assumed did not, could not exist.

“I don’t think I really know what pain is. I only get an impression of it. I was taught early on that monsters didn’t enjoy it, so for a time I did my best to avoid causing it. But I don’t feel it. Not like I should.”

They scratched at the jagged wound absent-mindedly, as if it were naught but an enflamed insect bite.

“I thought that was normal, you know? When I first woke up in the Ruins. Sorry. When we first woke up in the Ruins. That this was just how humans were. Numb.” The child would have smiled sadly, had they the capacity. “I didn’t really have much of a frame of reference. It made sense, too. From the history books. How else could humans be so cruel to monsters who seemed so nice?”

“But then we found their stuff. The kids that came before me, I mean. I realised that they had died. I couldn’t help but wonder why, you know? Why would they let that happen? There was so much to see. So much to do. So many monsters to meet. It didn’t even occur to me that they couldn’t RESET. That even if they could, they might not want to. Because dying hurt, in lots of different ways. And maybe it hurt so bad that they didn’t want to come back.”

“Then I remembered something. Something Toriel told me. Told us. At the entrance to the Underground, when she tried to stop us from leaving. The first time. That all the other kids left because they wanted to reach the surface. They needed, really needed to get back home.” The child tried a laugh, but what came out was more of a sputtering cough. 

“Not me, though. I just wanted to know what was on the other side of that door. That’s not normal, right? To hurt someone as bad I hurt Toriel. To leave her alone in the Ruins when all she wanted was to keep me safe. Just because I was curious. I didn’t feel like it was wrong. I still don’t. Sure, I knew that I should feel bad that I’d made her sad. But I really wanted to see what was behind that door, you know? So I left.”

Their attention turned from their hand to the decidedly bewildered Chara.

“Chara. How do you even see? I’m curious. Wait, don’t answer that. I read in the Librarby that humans are meant to use their eyes, right? Light hits the eye, some biology happens, then they see an image? That sounds nice.” 

The child’s fists clenched absentmindedly.

“…Not how I see the world though. I guess you figured that already” 

A shiver ran through the core of the demon’s being in the silence that followed.

“After that, I noticed lots of other things too. Like how monsters kept saying it was strange how I didn’t fight back, even when they attacked me. But that seemed silly. Why would I fight back when it would cause them a nasty thing like pain? When they were probably really nice? When they still had so much to show me? It wasn’t like I lost anything if they hurt me. If they killed me. Just some time. And I had plenty of that.”

“Also, I couldn’t talk like I am now. Not sure why I can speak here. Might be this place. Might be you. Dunno. Usually, it’s like I give an impression of something, then whoever I was talking to would know exactly what I meant. And treat it like I had spoken. I guess most monsters haven’t talked to a human before… but even Toriel and Asgore would act like that was normal. Even Asriel. That’s really weird, right?”

“Eventually I realised. That I was different. Human, but not really. You keep saying I’m something more, like I’m something above everyone else. Something powerful. I guess you’re right, in a sense. But I always thought I was something less. It wasn’t about what I could do. It was about what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t really feel. I couldn’t really talk. I couldn’t really understand. Dependant on the words of a helpful ghost to interpret the world around me.”

“Guess there wasn’t really ever much hope that I could treat anyone like they were really real. Like they deserve to be treated.”

The child collapsed back into a foetal position, voice softer still – hoarse from overuse.

“But I want to. I really, really want to. I want to love them. As much as I can. But that won’t stop me.” The child looked down. “That didn’t stop me. I don’t know why I did it. Why I kept doing it.”

“I guess this all just isn’t enough.”

“Everything was good. The first time, I mean. We reached the surface. Nearly everyone. I didn’t even have to do anything. It was all Asriel. Even after all he’d been through. All he felt. All he did. He SAVED them all. I thought that was really cool. To be honest, I was pretty envious. Of the strength that must have taken. I hope that I could have done that, if I was as burdened as he was.”

“I don’t remember anything after that. Not a thing. I only remember waking up in the Ruins. Everyone else remembered even less than I did. It hurt, but I don’t think it hurt as much as it should have. Part of me was happy. I could do it all over again. Mostly though, I was curious. What if I did something different?”

“But that didn’t make sense. That doesn’t make sense. The surface was brand new. Full of opportunity. Why repeat the same thing again and again? Yet it happened time after time. The surface, a picture of everyone together, then the Ruins. Sometimes a talk with Sans. Sometimes with Flowey. In a place kinda like this. But different. I didn’t understand. I still don’t.”

“I could walk before I knew what legs were, let alone use them. Communicate before I knew a single word.” The child once more brought their bleeding appendage to their face, twisting and turning it. Manipulating it. But never owning it. “This is my hand. My pain. My actions. Yet they feel like a strangers. That must sound terrible, right? Like I’m trying to blame my actions on someone else. Maybe I am. And maybe that person is also me. But a different part? I just don’t know.”

The child brought their forehead to rest against their knees.

“I don’t know and that doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it should. But I wish it did.”

Time passed.

Chara blinked. Crimson irises betrayed by flecks of brown. It was evident that they had been correct. That there were indeed multiple parts at play within this creature, parts which did not fit as intended. A square pin in a circular hole.

The demon shook. It was one thing to suspect the limitations of one’s own reality. Another thing entirely to witness proof of it.

But they refused to think upon this matter further. Refused to waste another moment considering any and all implications of the child’s words. 

Time spent pondering the child’s rambling was time wasted. Ultimately, the situation remained unchanged. The deal meant all. To consider anything else was a distraction.

“…I see,” Chara eventually began, voice hard. Smile taut. “Well. Whilst this exchange in monologues has no doubt been delightful, it changes nothing. Regardless of your feelings, your thoughts – we remain at this point. Brought to this point by your actions. I have said my piece. The deal remains. I would appreciate an answer, partner.”

The child who wished that they might be Frisk clenched Frisks’ wounded fist tightly. The sound of bones cracking filled the eternal nothing.

The demon had long since grown tired of feeling the child’s soul swell with determination.

“You’re right. I know that none of what I feel really matters. If I think like that…then I’m just being selfish, right? Thinking about this stuff doesn’t matter. Not really. A pity party is a party for one, and I’ve never particularly enjoyed my own company. There was a lot of that in the Underground. Monsters unable to act, bound by their circumstances. By their limitations. Running away from themselves and others because staying still would let it all catch up to them.”

The demon’s smile twitched. Their anger rising each moment the child spent failing to answer a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. Each moment Chara was forced to consider the child’s situation.

“But just like you said, Chara. I’m not like them. I can take all of that pain. All of their pain. And ACT despite it. Because of it!”

Their attempts to remain composed seemed about as futile as their expectation of receiving an answer.

“That’s why I needed to bring us to this point. To test a theory. A theory that yo-!”

The blow struck the child directly beneath their ribcage, the sheer savagery of it ripping the air from their lungs as they were sent sprawling throughout the nothing. Temporarily robbed of their newfound words, the child’s body reeled in the wake of an advancing revenant.

“To. Test. A. Theory?” Each word was spat through the clenched teeth of a being swathed in an aura of such incandescent fury that even the omnipresent nothingness seemed to shrink away from. 

Even to an aspiring demon, the reduction of the complete annihilation of everything they had ever known to a mere experiment momentarily proved too much to bear. 

It took every ounce of pride and willpower that Chara possessed to contain themselves, to quell the searing sense of absolute, humiliating inferiority that this thing that lay at their feet had birthed within them. To ignore quite how satisfying lashing out in anger had felt.

The demon shook psychotically as it drew in a ragged breath, forcing itself to comply with its calm façade. 

“…My apologies. It seems I lost my composure for a moment. By all means. Continue.”

Frisk made a mental note to be more considerate with their phrasing, then underlined said note. Twice.

“Apology accepted. But I needed to know, Chara.” Frisk’s voice gave way to a spluttering cough, their body protesting at their prioritisation of speaking over forcing air back into their lungs. “To… know that you could… stop me. To know… that you could control me. In the way that I can’t. The way that I won’t. The way that matters.”

Chara loomed above the child, oozing menace. To put it lightly, they did not appreciate the implication that this had been the child’s plan all along. 

“I advise you arrive at whatever point you wish to make. Quickly.”

The child’s body instinctually recoiled. Their mind, however, appeared resolute. 

“I want… to propose a trade.”

Chara considered punching the child again. 

“A trade. Really. You believe yourself to be in a position to bargain?”

The child nodded, as confidently as one can when sprawled at another’s feet and reflexively clutching their abdomen. Something about the upward tilt of their face managed to convey how obvious they thought this was. Chara wondered whether what they saw as evidence of ascendancy might in fact just be a special kind of obliviousness. 

“Please endeavour to understand. I require one thing. Your SOUL. To be frank, I care little for what you wish to do after the exchange.” At this point, Chara’s exasperation was beginning to overwhelm their frustration. “I simply do not see the issue. You get what you want. I get what I want. A fair exchange between two equals.”

Frisk nodded once more.

“I understand. And you can have it. My SOUL, I mean. But I want to ask something of you, first.”

Chara’s eye narrowed, dangerously.

“And if I refuse?”

The child shrugged.

“That’s fine, too. It wouldn’t be a request if you couldn’t refuse. I know that’s really important to you. It’s important to me too. That this is done as equals. Otherwise this won’t work.”

The sound of Chara’s exhausted sigh was once more devoured by the nothing. Deciding whether the child was being genuine or offering mere flattery was difficult to determine when the subject’s face nor voice offered anything emotive. That this was a ploy was doubtful, however. Sincerity in action and feeling, however misguided or bizarre, was one of the child’s only admirable traits. 

And one of their most alien.

Either way, the demon supposed it did not matter. They wanted this situation resolved.

“Fine.” Chara’s posture relaxed, their signature smile stabilising as they slipped back into their polite, business-like mask. Their goal but one deed away. “What would you ask of me, partner?”

Something like relief flooded through the child. They lay spread eagle amidst the nothing, blind eyes staring upward - imagining stars.

“No more resets.”

The demon was utterly flabbergasted. 

“Really?” they asked.

“Really.” The child answered.

“Why?”

“For them.”

Time passed. 

Chara blinked, bringing two pale palms up to massage their temples. They felt obliged to try one more time.

“I cannot understand. You destroy this world, only to then resurrect it and live within it limited in this particular way? This will not bring you to their level. They are not your equals. They are powerless. Wholly beneath the two of us. You remember Asriel, I trust? Not the soulless abomination that came after, but the naïve princeling. He was my consequence. A rash decision. A pawn poorly used. I blamed him for a time. I called him Traitor. Liar. Scum. It was wroth that bound me to existence as I watched this world stagnate through a pinhole. But no longer. I came to the same conclusion that you must. He does not matter. None of them do. No longer to me. Never to you. How can they? With what we know. With what you taught me. They are your toys now, partner. You should not think of them as more. For your own sake.”

The child showed no signs of changing their position. Resolute in their futility. 

Chara gave up, shaking their head in resignation. This unusually human action appeared to dispel the demoniac red from their eyes. The pupils that remained were a deceptively gentle brown, their smile appearing that much more genuine without its diabolic backlight. Their surroundings grew lighter.

Where moments before a deity and a demon faced each other in the abyss, two children now stood.

“You are more human than I thought. Or perhaps merely getting better at pretending.” 

Frisk’s face seemed to rise at that, which did not go unnoticed by Chara.

“Neither statement should be taken as a compliment. I do not understand. However, understanding is not a prerequisite to action. If those are your terms, then-”

Frisk held up a hand. The non-bloodied one. Chara’s bewilderment reached new heights. 

“…Yes?”

Frisk shuffled on the spot, like a child waiting to be scolded by a teacher. Chara’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“…There is something else you would ask of me?”

The child nodded, appearing far guiltier than they had during their confession only minutes ago.

“Speak.” The demon commanded, that familiar razor edge creeping back into their voice.

So Frisk spoke, in a voice so quiet that it was almost a murmur.

“…Make them remember. Please.”

Chara tilted their head. It was clear that their ‘partner’ was planning something and using them to accomplish this. Typically, any attempt at manipulation would’ve angered Chara greatly, but their rage was smothered by a simple fact. The SOUL was everything. Regardless of what the child was planning, the moment they handed over their SOUL Chara had won. Besides which, in all likelihood their partner was simply attempting to experience something new, albeit in the brave new world of harming themselves instead of others. A prospect that sat rather well with Chara.

“I am no genie, partner. Two masochistic wishes will have to do. Understand this. I will uphold these terms to the letter. This entails that if you meet your end amidst this remade world, that will be it. There will be no going back.”

Unless I decide otherwise, Chara internally noted. 

Frisk, unsure only of what a masochist was and why Chara knew, nodded their head.

“Then we have a DEAL.”

Chara offered their hand.

“You will give me your SOUL.”

Frisk took the hand, gripping it tightly.

“And I will gladly limit you.” 

Then, their voice suffused with relief akin to the last rush of gas through a corpse’s lungs, Chara uttered:

“Then it is done.”

And the player’s beloved, hollow world was born anew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is a child when it is not a child? Either a god or a demon, apparently. I've had this idea on the back burner for quite a while now. A fair share of the Undertale stories I've read here have toyed with the meta themes of the game by having the Player as an independent, often malevolent force. Never was a fan of that. Here I wanted to blur the lines between Frisk and the Player considerably.


End file.
